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Blending Snow And Dirt Into One, Nate Zollinger Strives to Build ZBroz Stronger Than Ever
Story By Savannah Rose | Photos By Brandon Bunch
For those of you who spend those white winters in the snowmobile community, you will recognize the ZBroz brand as one of the top performance suspension manufacturers that the sport has to offer. But, ZBroz, short for Zollinger Brothers, also found their way into the dirt through the ATV/UTV market and found a whole new passion.
Founded by brothers Lance, Ryan, Anthony and Nathan, the “ZBroz” all share a passion for powersports, finding success both in business and competition.
“We live, breathe, and eat UTVs and snowmobiles,” said Nathan. “100% We are total motorheads.”
UTV Sports caught up with Nathan Zollinger at the 2021 King of the Hammers event this February to find out a little more about ZBroz and what the brothers have planned for the future of their company after their recent induction into the Wheel Pros family of brands.
2020 brought the world a long list of firsts, including Nate’s first time competitively racing UTVs, and they did it on a very large stage, the toughest one-day off-road race in the world. King of the Hammers. Their race goal was simple; bolt on their off-the-shelf parts on a stock Polaris RZR Turbo S, and complete the race. They did exactly that with a 25th place finish.
“We’re the type of team that just wants to prove our products, and finish the race,” Nathan said.
ZBroz decided to race again this year, taking lessons learned from last year’s event, to evolve their strategy and improve their results. A concept they use in manufacturing as well. First agenda item was to fine tune their suspension setup, as last year they found it a little “too soft.” The brothers also decided to continue last year’s tactic of running tall 35” tires, and once again had zero issues; no flats, no punctures, and no tire changes needed thanks to their EFX Tires Motovator R/T setup.
When it comes to clutching, Nathan said, “We come from the snowmobile world, so CVTs are common, and nothing new for us. We worked with Starting Line Products, who are big in snow, and more and more are showing up in the UTV space. We called Jerry and Adam from SLP and they sent us cam arms and a primary spring. The secondary is actually stock, as we’re going for reliability over speed. The motor is stock, too.”
The ZBroz company history is steeped in racing. Nate played conventional high school sports as a kid, but leaped at the chance to compete in snowmobile hill climbs at just 16 years old. Over the next decade, the brothers landed numerous championships, and an avalanche of wins. Nathan wanted to devote his career to the powersports industry, so they began manufacturing and selling their own products. ZBroz started as a side job in just a 240 sq ft room in 1998, selling ATV and snowmobile parts, and found rapid success in every way. Eventually expanding into what it is today.
Knowing that he and his brothers were racers first, and not fabricators, the brothers have brought in talent around them to solidify that department of the company and educate themselves along the way. That business effort has brought them enough attention to draw interest from the largest wheel manufacturer in the business, Wheel Pros, and in February 2020, became a new segment fulfillment for the powerhouse. This new backing put them back on the race track to take the brand to the next level.
ZBroz wants to maintain their level of quality and stand out from their competition. For starters, they manufacture everything in-house, right in Utah. They fabricate and machine all their own parts, including their in-house shock absorbers, Exit Shocks. They have two locations in Utah, one in Logan, where all of the marketing, sales, and R&D happens and another 160,000 sq ft facility under way in Ogden, where they recently moved all manufacturing to.
“We were a homegrown company with no real distribution,” said Nathan. “Although we had some dealers and a great customer base, we pride ourselves on selling to repeat customers. Being with Wheel Pros now, we let them handle the distribution aspect, as well as the financial backing so we can be warehoused around the country, so every customer, including Canadians, can have the products in just a couple days.”
“We’re putting our foot on the gas, and have big things in store for the future.”
“We pride ourselves in our development process. Once we get the car or machine, we measure it then create a concept in solid works, utilizing real world testing through sponsored drivers. We even drive it ourselves to ensure the products can take a beating, and still function properly. We want to make sure our parts fit like a factory part, but obviously work better,” said Nathan.
ZBroz passion in making parts lies in making high quality, high precision parts so you get a reliable part right out of the box. “Everyone has their own secret sauce to shock manufacturing, their own pistons and valving, but ours is a little bit different. We use a different piston design. Just one way we’re always working on bigger and better stuff.”
The brothers look forward to expanding their product offering to a wider variety of vehicle fitments, continuing to improve performance, all while making these parts available to the customer at a competitive price.


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Lower crude oil prices in June
For the first time since October 2016, crude oil prices in June were below the level recorded one year previously. The price of a barrel of North Sea Brent oil in June 2017 was over 42 euros, almost 5 percent lower than in June 2016. In May, the barrel price stood at almost 47 euros, 10 percent up from May 2016.
Output prices are strongly affected by crude oil price developments. In June, prices of petroleum derivatives decreased by over 1 percent year-on-year, versus a price increase of over 11 percent in May.
In the chemical industry as well, output prices are affected by crude oil price developments. Output prices of chemical products were almost 7 percent up in June year-on-year. In May the average year-on-year price increase was more than 10 percent.
Prices in the basic metal industry were almost 13 percent up on an annual basis. Prices of food, metal, rubber and plastic products as well as in the automotive industry were also higher than one year previously. This is partly due to higher prices for agricultural raw materials and metals. On the other hand, prices of machinery and equipment were again below the level of twelve months previously.
|Basic metal products
|Rubber and plastic
Altogether, the eight industries referred to in the above text and the corresponding graph account for 80 percent of the total Dutch manufacturing industry.
Prices of manufactured products lower in June than in May
Prices of manufactured products fell by over 1 percent in June relative to May; the decline was 1 percent on the domestic market and 1.5 percent on the foreign market. The price of crude oil also decreased in June.

domain: news


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There is a ton of debt that needs to be made up in the United States Post Office (USPS) and this Friday is the beginning of some rate hikes and some later delivery times. It's part of a ten-year plan to try and put a dent into the one hundred sixty billion dollar debt they are facing.
Get ready to plan and pay for your mail to be more expensive and to get to its destination later. Packages, letters, magazines, and other mail that will be sent across the country will now take five days to get there instead of just three according to News Channel 13. There are other changes too that will take effect on Monday, October 4th.
Rates for shipping packages will also be getting more expensive starting Monday. There will be increases ranging from twenty-five cents up to five dollars for some packages.
You will need to plan accordingly to send your packages during the holiday rush. The holiday season will be different this year. If you are usually a procrastinator, you will have to get all of your shipments together ahead of time this year. They will take a couple of days longer to get to your destination across the country. But not just during the holidays, you will see a change starting this Friday.
I'm really not sure this will make a dent in a one hundred sixty billion dollar debt. That's billion with a "b". I guess they are doing what they can to make up some of it but I think it would take decades to break even.


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UK Stocks-Factors to watch on July 29
Britain's FTSE 100 .FTSE index is seen opening 11 points lower at 6,118 on Wednesday, according to financial bookmakers.
* GSK: Sanofi SASY.PA and GSK GSK.L said they had reached an agreement with Britain to supply it with up to 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine. RETAIL: British retailers discounted their goods less in July than the month before, after consumer demand picked up in many sectors as coronavirus lockdown restrictions eased, data from the British Retail Consortium showed. OFGEM: Britain's energy market regulator Ofgem proposed measures on Wednesday to tackle what it called unscrupulous energy brokers so small businesses could get fairer energy deals. GOVERNMENT FUND: Britain has announced a 500 million-pound ($647 million) fund to help television and film companies restart productions after companies complained they were unable to get insurance because of the coronavirus pandemic. OIL: Oil prices rose after an industry report showed that crude inventories in the United States fell against expectations, giving the market a boost amid record increases of coronavirus infections in the U.S. and elsewhere. The UK blue-chip index .FTSE closed up 0.4% on Tuesday, as investors hedged with defensive stocks ahead of some keenly awaited events such as a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting and a decision on a U.S. stimulus plan. UK CORPORATE DIARY:
HY Earnings Releases Unite Group
HY Earnings Releases Dignity
HY Earnings Releases Jupiter Fund Management
HY Earnings Releases Barclays
BARC.L HY Earnings Releases Smith & Nephew
HY Earnings Releases Next PLC
Q2 Trading Statement Tullow Oil
HY Trading Statement Lancashire Holdings Ltd
Q2 Earnings Releases AVEVA Group
Q1 Trading Statement Drax Group
HY Earnings Releases Weir Group
WEIR.L HY Earnings Releases Rio Tinto
HY Earnings Releases Premier Foods
Q1 Trading Statement GlaxoSmithKline
Q2 Earnings Releases
* For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: LIVE/
TODAY'S UK PAPERS
> Financial Times
> Other business headlines
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The US economy is currently facing concerns of a potential bubble burst in the buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) market. This follows a period of high inflation in Europe, which has raised concerns about the stability of the global economy.
In a recent report, it has been revealed that the total value of buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) loans in the United States has experienced tremendous growth in the last two years. From 2019 to 2021, the value of BNPL loans in the US has grown by more than 1,000 percent, increasing from $2 billion to $24.2 billion. This significant increase in BNPL loan value highlights the growing popularity of this type of financing among American consumers.
What really is the Buy now Pay later bubble?
The buy now pay later (BNPL) bubble is a phenomenon that has been gaining attention in recent years. BNPL is a form of financing that allows consumers to purchase goods or services and pay for them at a later date, often with no interest or fees. This type of financing has become increasingly popular, with BNPL providers such as After Pay and Klarna experiencing rapid growth in recent years.
While BNPL may seem like a great option for consumers, there are concerns that it could be contributing to a bubble in the economy. The BNPL bubble is driven by the rapid growth of BNPL providers and the increasing number of consumers using these services. This rapid growth is leading to increased competition among BNPL providers, which is driving down interest rates and making it easier for consumers to access credit.
The concern is that as BNPL becomes more prevalent, consumers will become more reliant on it, leading to a decrease in their ability to save and invest. This could cause a ripple effect throughout the economy, as consumers become less able to save and invest, leading to a decrease in overall economic growth. Additionally, if the bubble were to burst, it could lead to a significant amount of consumer debt, which could have negative consequences for both individuals and the economy as a whole.
However, it should be noted that many financial experts believe that the BNPL bubble is not as big of a concern as it may seem. They argue that the BNPL is a small part of the overall economy, and that the rapid growth is not necessarily indicative of a bubble. Additionally, many experts believe that the BNPL companies have a strong handle on the risks associated with their business model, and that they have put in place measures to mitigate those risks.
In conclusion, the buy now pay later bubble is a phenomenon that has been gaining attention in recent years due to the rapid growth of BNPL providers and the increasing number of consumers using these services. While there are concerns that the BNPL bubble could have negative consequences for the economy, many financial experts believe that the BNPL is a small part of the overall economy and that the rapid growth is not necessarily indicative of a bubble. As with any new financial product or service, it is important for consumers to understand the risks and benefits before using them, and to use them responsibly.


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Weight loss programs that provide healthy fats, such as olive oil in the Mediterranean diet, or a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet have similar impacts on pound-shedding, a new study shows.
University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers report that a meal plan rich in walnuts, which are high in polyunsaturated fats, has a significant impact on lipid levels for women, especially those who are insulin-resistant.
Overweight and obese adult women were enrolled in a one-year behavioral weight loss program and randomly assigned to one of three diets consisting of either: low-fat and high-carbohydrate; low-carbohydrate and high-fat; or a walnut-rich, high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet.
The findings showed that all three dietary plans promoted similar weight loss. Insulin-sensitive women lost the most weight with a low-fat diet but that strategy did not result in the most benefit for lipid levels.
The walnut-rich diet had the most impact on cholesterol levels by decreasing low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or bad cholesterol, and increasing beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The high-fat, low-carb group, which consumed monounsaturated fats, did not experience the same beneficial effects as the walnut-rich diet, which featured polyunsaturated fatty acids. Researchers noted that even though diet composition impacts lipid levels the critical factor in weight loss continues to be burning more calories than you consume.
Ref: J Am Heart Assoc. 2016 Jan 25;5(1). pii: e002771. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.115.002771.


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The Game Awards 2020 not only celebrated the best games of the year, it also hosted a wide range of World Premieres of upcoming titles. One such World Premiere is of The Callisto Protocol, an upcoming survival horror game with an all-new take on the genre!
Watch the reveal trailer for the game here:
The Cinematic Trailer for the game is no doubt impressive and intense, though what makes the game even more exciting is that it is being developed by Striking Distance Studios. In case you’re unfamiliar, the said studio is helmed by Glen Schofield, the creator of the iconic Dead Space series and founder of Sledgehammer Games. The team behind Dead Space is also confirmed to be working on the game!
The Callisto Protocol’s premise is described as:
“Set on Jupiter’s moon Callisto in the year 2320, The Callisto Protocol is a next-generation take on survival horror. The game challenges players to escape the maximum security Black Iron Prison and uncover its terrifying secrets. A blend of horror, action, and immersive storytelling, the game aims to set a new bar for horror in interactive entertainment.”
To follow up the cinematic trailer for the game, Striking Distance Studios is set to release an uncensored red band version of the said trailer for The Callisto Protocol on the game’s Discord at 10am PT on Thursday, December 17.
The Callisto Protocol will release on PC and consoles in 2022.


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Orion Rigel Dommisse just unveiled another song from her mind-blowing new record, ‘Omicron‘. This one’s called ‘Nightgaunt’ and it’s the opening track of the album. You can listen to it via Soundcloud.
‘Omicron’ is set for release on October 18th, 2014 and pre-orders are still running! Secure yourself a copy now by visiting our online store. Or take advantage of our combo deal: if you order ‘Omicron’ and ‘Chickens’, the shipping is on us! Worldwide!


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Television is a comfortable medium for advertisers. In the first half of 2017, the total Australian television market amassed $2.17 billion in ad revenue. ThinkTV figures released in February showed that despite the medium’s total revenues declining 0.7 per cent compared to the previous six months, some free-to-air and broadcast video on demand markets improved substantially.
Combining television’s attractiveness with newspapers has shown to improve advertising efficiencies, also adding reach and frequency to campaigns. Fourteen per cent of readers are strong newspaper readers but not strong consumers of TV – these readers provide additional reach for TV advertisers while 41 per cent of readers are strong newspaper readers who are also strong consumers of TV – these readers provide additional frequency. Fifty-five per cent of the 12.4 million newspaper readers are highly engaged, providing extra value for TV advertisers.


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NEW YORK - With the broad S&P 500 Index gliding once again into uncharted territory and posting four straight weeks of gains, the talk of Wall Street's rally inevitably hitting a ceiling is starting to get old.
LONDON - From ketchup to hot drinks, family-run investment firms are shaking up the consumer deals market, squeezing out private equity players and forcing them to change strategy.
BEIJING/HONG KONG - China reiterated its opposition on Thursday to a European Union plan to limit airline carbon dioxide emissions and called for talks to resolve the issue a day after its major airlines refused to pay any carbon costs under the new law.
Warburg leads $32 million investment in Indian online firm
MUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus WP.UL along with existing investors have pumped $32 million in fresh funds into Indian online classifieds firm Quickr, the e-commerce company said on Tuesday.
Quickr, which aims to use the cash to expand across online and mobile platforms, said existing investors that participated in this round include online retail giant eBay Inc (EBAY.O), private equity Matrix Partners India and global venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners.
Rising incomes and aspirations to own big brands at discounted rates are pushing middle-class Indians to shop from the comfort of their homes, giving a boost to the country's fledgling $10 billion online commerce market.
With the business set to pick up Indian media group Network 18 (NEFI.NS) is moving towards a U.S. listing of its wholly owned online retail arm, HomeShop18, that could raise about $100 million, sources said recently.
Private equity funds invested $10.58 billion across 501 deals in 2011 in India, up more than a fifth from $8.47 billion across 416 deals in 2010, according to data from industry tracker VCCircle.com.
($1=55 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)
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text: Since opening the Cleveland Hostel three-and-a-half years ago, owner Mark Raymond has welcomed more than 10,000 guests from 60-plus countries.The Ohio City business owner is taking the next leg in his own entrepreneurial journey by opening Passengers Café next month in the hostel lobby. Raymond recently completed buildout of the new West 25th Street café, which will have a coffee bar as well as indoor and outdoor seating. The 700-square-foot venue will be aimed at hostel guests and neighborhood visitors alike. Expect a place where you can grab an espresso or cup of coffee and relax while hearing foreign languages being spoken around you. When it opens in a month or so, Passengers Café will offer tea, coffee, a variety of beverages, bagels and pastries. It also will sell travel items such as notebooks, toothbrushes and small carrying cases. And of course, free Wi-Fi will be available. “I’ve always wanted to do something else with the lobby besides just a lobby and check-in, but I decided to focus on the hostel first and get that going,” Raymond said. “A lot of people who live in the neighborhood say, ‘I want to check out the hostel and go there, it’s really cool,’ but right now there’s no reason to. This will give them a reason … It will also get the word out about the hostel.” Raymond’s business partner in the café is Trey Kirchoff, a restaurant industry veteran. He and his wife recently moved back to her hometown of Cleveland after living for a decade in New York City. Kirchoff previously worked for Gimme! Coffee, a coffeehouse based in Ithaca, N.Y., as the regional manager of the company’s three New York City locations. The Milwaukee native moved to Cleveland to pursue his dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. “Before we got here, I wanted to open a place in New York City,” said Kirchoff, who lives in Ohio City with his wife, Dana, and their son. “But in New York, it costs about half your soul to open your own business. When I came here, that was the intention. I immediately wanted to do something.” Since moving to Cleveland a year ago, Kirchoff has worked at Jonathon Sawyer’s downtown ramen house Noodlecat as well as Lucky’s Café in Tremont. Kirchoff said he’s most excited about bringing in specialty coffee from artisan roasters across the United States and educating guests about what’s in their cups. Onyx Coffee Lab out of Fayetteville, Ark., and Reanimator Coffee out of Philadelphia are among those that will be featured, along with Gimme! Coffee. Passengers Café will also sell whole bags of beans. Kirchoff is excited about building off the great coffee options that already exist in Ohio City. One of the café’s coolest design elements is the coffee and beverage station housed in an old phone booth. Raymond said the relic sat in his parents’ basement for 30 years before he reclaimed it for the hostel. “I grew up with a phone booth in my basement. I thought everyone had one,” he joked. There will be a fridge in the bottom and sugar and cream will be available in the top half. If the café’s high ceilings, large storefront windows, rustic wood floors and blond wood accents aren’t enough, visitors will undoubtedly be lured by the chance to hang out on the hostel’s fourth floor roof deck. Previously, only hostel guests had access to the 700-square-foot outdoor space, which offers views of downtown and West 25th Street. Kirchoff and Raymond don’t yet have all the details on the types of bagels, toast and pastries they’ll be offering. The café will open early in the morning and remain open until the end of the business day. Kirchoff plans to adjust the hours based on demand. Kirchoff, a convivial host by nature, said he’s excited about opening a café in the neighborhood he calls home. “I believe coffee brings people together,” he said. Chilcote is a freelance writer and editor who has written for Vanity Fair, Next City, Belt and other publications. He also is co-founder of Literary Cleveland. Email Chilcote at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @leechilcote.


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3 major trends for developing market startups from China’s fintech revolution
Imagine the ideal backdrop for a fintech revolution. What are the perfect conditions? Here’s a list many of us would come up with:
In 2017, the streets of Shanghai, not Palo Alto, are at the center of fintech. China isn’t experiencing a fintech revolution, it’s living in a post-fintech society.
Among digitally active users, fintech adoption is more than twice as high in China compared to the U.S.
In term of growth, mobile payments over China’s leading service providers WeChat and Alipay reached USD $2.9 trillion (RMB 20 trillion), a 20 fold increase in four years.
Meanwhile the U.S., a country that arguably ticks off 3/4 of the above conditions, is seeing mobile payments struggle to gain traction, especially at points-of-sale. Adoption has plateaued and only a small fraction (~5%) of users in a recent mobile payments survey use the leading services (Apple, Android, and Samsung-Pay) once or more a week. Fintech’s growth in China is not limited to payments. Even though P2P innovators like Lending Club were stars in Silicon Valley just a few years ago, China has shown it has a much larger appetite for P2P lending.
At DFS Lab, we work with the best fintech entrepreneurs and investors in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. However, Silicon Valley’s influence is never far with constant mentions of a new venture being the “Lending Club of Pakistan” or the “Affirm of Kenya.” What we don’t often hear are entrepreneurs looking to be the next Alipay or WeChat Pay. Up and coming Chinese startups ushering in the next wave of fintech like Qing Song Chou (轻松筹), a crowdfunding platform that is integrated into WeChat, are relatively unknown to the entrepreneurs we talk to.
Qing Song Chou is an especially good example of the missed opportunity to learn and adopt. With a $20 million Series B round of funding, the startup is cracking the challenge of digitizing informal lending based on social relationships. It’s an unsolved challenge often discussed in our sector and there’s a team in Beijing solving it for tens of millions of people who we aren’t talking about.
Obviously, there are major differences between markets. China has a higher GDP per capita and literacy rate than countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. More distinctly, it has a centralized government that invests in digital infrastructure and protects nascent companies. These elements are difficult to emulate. However, it would be foolish to ignore the power shift in fintech from West to East and there’s certainly a lot we can learn. Here are three major trends from Alipay and WeChat that we should keep an eye on:
1. Apps as the internet
The next billion to come online will see Facebook, WhatsApp, WeChat or an equivalent as the internet. In Myanmar, DFS Lab’s Ben Lyon saw mobile phone dealers pre-loading Facebook contacts onto <$30 smartphones because customers demanded it. The debate of designing for web vs. mobile is over.
2. Apps within apps
If you’re going to become the internet, you have an opportunity to cater to the long-tail of consumer demand. WeChat has responded to that opportunity and is now described as the “one app to rule them all.” It has set an example of how a messaging app can evolve and much of its success can be attributed to its “app-within-an-app model.”
WeChat offers access to over 10 million smaller apps in its ecosystem. Each can be officially authorized to access WeChat APIs for payments, location, direct messages, voice messages, user IDs, and more. The smaller apps run like a full web experience without ever leaving WeChat itself which means users do not have to download anything new and developers do not have to worry about compatibility across mobile operating systems.
The New York Times produced a great video highlighting some of the smaller apps within WeChat and how they benefit each other by keeping the user within the larger app. It also touches on privacy concerns that shouldn’t be ignored as we consider how others will try to emulate this trend.
It’s not surprising that Facebook’s plan for Facebook Messenger focuses on a creating a central directory for businesses and chatbots, keeping users in the app by integrating third-party services into the conversation, and the use of QR codes to interact with the physical world — it’s right out of Tencent’s WeChat playbook.
3. Finance in the background
In 2015, more than 1 billion “red envelopes” were sent over WeChat Pay during Chinese New Year. In the following year, the number grew eight fold to over 8 billion red envelopes sent over Chinese New Year. In comparison, PayPal had a total of 4.9 billion transactions in all of 2015.
The feature spawned from WeChat’s own team who wanted an easier way to pay small monetary bonuses around Chinese New Year as part of a broader tradition to give out red envelopes to family and friends during the holiday. They wanted to remove the pain of the financial transaction while highlighting the joy around the tradition. This resulted in a WeChat feature that allows users to send red envelopes in group chats which grew into a social phenomenon that jump started WeChat’s mobile wallet WeChat Pay. It continues to be popular with 88% of users citing it as a use case.
Designing experiences around users’ lifestyles and minimizing finance into the background is not only good practice, it’s at the core of how China’s fintech leaders see themselves. To add a new service in WeChat, users add them using the same process they use to add their (human) friends. Alipay describes itself as a “global lifestyle super app.” A 2016 Alipay promotion video highlights the app as the first stop for not only payments and investments, but also for dining, leisure, and transportation. Finance itself becomes a seamless process in the background for services that matter more to users.
At DFS Lab we advise our entrepreneurs to consider these lessons. Teller designs chatbots for financial service providers, preempting the “apps as the internet” role we think messaging apps will serve for new mobile data users. Utilizing a hybrid of hyper-local satellite and ground-based data sources, Pula will offer timely and personalized advice to farmers while providing crop insurance and other financial services as a seamless background feature.
The success of fintech within our markets in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will not exactly mirror China’s fintech expansion. However, the major trends we can observe from a market onboarding hundreds of millions of new digital finance users tell us a lot about what a leapfrog in financial services looks like.
We are already seeing China’s fintech giants look to expand into markets outside of the mainland. Alibaba’s Ant Financial has invested in HelloPay in Southeast Asia, Mynt in the Philippines, Paytm in India, and most recently, put in a $1.6 billion bid to purchase MoneyGram in the U.S.. WeChat has expanded into Europe and is taking on WhatsApp in South Africa.
It’s likely that the mass adoption of digital financial services in Nigeria or Pakistan will look more like Alipay and WeChat than ApplePay or PayPal, and we’ll be paying attention.
Eight startup teams joined us for a week to tackle some of the most difficult problems in fintech — here’s what we saw.
We landed in Sri Lanka really excited about the week ahead. Against the background of the country’s western shore, eight incredible entrepreneur teams were about to embark on a design sprint to prototype and test their fintech concepts. The teams were excited to get going — there was the possibility of up to $100,000 in funding and a spot in our next cohort, a 6-month accelerator where startups would gain access to a network of world-class mentors and additional advisory from the DFS Lab team.
DFS Lab’s first bootcamp attracted strong fintech entrepreneurs and now a year into building the Lab, we were lucky enough to garner interest from an even larger pool of talent. Out of hundreds of applicants, eight teams were chosen to hit the ground in Sri Lanka ready to work with the Lab to bring their concepts to life:
We use a modified Design Sprint methodology for our bootcamps. Teams move rapidly from mapping the problem, to sketching possible solutions, to deciding what to test, to building a prototype, to validating with real customers. They landed in Sri Lanka with a startup problem and leave Sri Lanka with customer feedback on a solution — all in a week’s time.
Our bootcamps is the last step of our selection process prior to our investment committee. Teams are not competing with each other during this phase, but instead are working with us in a mutual due diligence process — we want to know how well they fit with DFS Lab and they want to know what we can offer. Throughout our selection process, we noticed some interesting trends in the sector:
1. The rise of digital financial service marketplaces As more digital financial service providers enter the landscape and offer a larger menu of choice to customers, the need for DFS marketplaces grows. Consumers need marketplace comparison apps to discover, filter, compare, and connect with the myriad of services. We’ve seen a number of such marketplace startups apply, and we invited one of them, Bloom Impact, to join us in Sri Lanka.
2. Insurance startups are becoming more common
We think there is a huge opportunity in insurance startups and insure-tech. This cohort is the first where we’ve seen a rise in promising applicants try to tackle insurance. Offering health insurance through remittance products was a trend. Pula, another one of our bootcamp participants, is revolutionizing crop insurance with their seeds that insured against drought.
3. Ingredient branding matters
More and more, we are seeing startups looking to improve the current DFS experience for low-income users. Some, like Pula mentioned above, hope to define their own brand in an industry where distribution is dominated by global seed giants. Others, like My Oral Village, want to extend existing DFS products to innumerate users, but risk a complete disconnect from their end-users unless they can brand themselves separately from financial institutions and mobile operators. We referenced the “Intel Inside” case study frequently during this bootcamp.
4. Chatbots get attention
It is always interesting to see how our bootcamp startups interact with each other and what they look to learn from each other. We invited Teller, a startup that creates AI banking assistants, to the bootcamp because we wanted to drive innovation around chatbots to developing economies. During the bootcamp, the Teller team was anointed resident messaging platform and chatbot experts by teams and mentors alike. There’s some straightforward value that chatbots bring to DFS providers by alleviating some customer service costs, but they are also a very interesting channel to increase customer engagement through messaging platforms many customers are familiar with and use everyday.
5. The continued explosion of alternative credit
Alternative credit continues to flourish and was the most represented type of startup during our application process. Direct to consumer models, now a bit more mature thanks to the teams like Jumo, Saida, Tala, and Branch have given way to a flood of MSME lending ventures. We’ll continue to experiment with alternative credit models to better understand what works, but are certainly now more cautious than ever about the dangers of such a unchecked expansion of credit.
We’re excited to see our bootcamp startup teams continue to grow and will be announcing the teams joining DFS Lab in its second cohort shortly. You can follow us @theDFSLab on Twitter and at www.dfslab.net for more about our startups, our future bootcamps, and more about our work in fintech for developing economies.
Thanks to Ben Lyon and Arunjay Katakam.
The DFS Lab team is excited to announce the nine incredible entrepreneurial teams that will attend our second Design Sprint bootcamp in Sri Lanka. These teams are coming to us from India, Canada, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. Meet the companies and team members who will be participating below!
I’m going to violate Betteridge’s law and come right out with it: The answer is yes, probably.
If we look at the current state of FinTech and fast forward 3–5 years, it’s likely that we’ll see a few emerging trends become commonplace:
So what’s behind these emerging trends? In a word, economics.
Savvy FinTech startups have succeeded in bringing new distribution methods, models, and user interfaces to market where traditional financial services providers have historically fallen flat.
Take Square, for instance, which flipped the merchant acquiring industry on its head by enabling anyone with a smartphone and 3.5 millimeter headphone jack to accept card payments via a simple, beautiful app. Square may have sprinted out of the gate, but competitors caught up quickly, replicating its innovation from Kenya to India to South Africa (not to mention its home turf, the US). Today, with a swarm of competitors on its heals, Square is increasingly focused on extending its moat via value-added services and loans (see Square Capital).
Another example is Lending Club, an early pioneer of the marketplace lending model. Lending Club leveraged a simple asymmetry: Credit card issuers often charge APRs in excess of 20% and deposit taking institutions pay APYs well under 5%. By giving retail investors an efficient way to diversify small investments across multiple borrowers, Lending Club gave investors a better return and gave borrowers lower rates. But Lending Club’s ‘secret sauce’ wasn’t enough to keep competitors at bay, and its model has now been replicated by banks and startups across the globe. Lending Club has responded by focusing on new verticals like auto loans, but the defensibility of these new verticals remains to be proven.
Competition validates that the early FinTech pioneers were on to something (and they were), but it also leads to thinning — if not vanishing — margins. And that begs the question: Who makes money in a world where transaction fees approach zero?
Why? Because at their core banks are just payments companies with deposit-taking and lending licenses, which gives them the ability to cross-subsidize lower-margin services like payments with higher-margin services like loans. And when it comes to lending, you can’t beat a bank’s cost of funds.
Just look at Equitel in Kenya, the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) run by Equity Bank on Airtel’s mobile network. It only costs Ksh 60.5 (~$0.59) to transfer Ksh 35,000 from Equitel’s MyMoney to an M-PESA account, whereas M-PESA charges Ksh 187 (~$1.82) to transfer Ksh 35,000 to an M-PESA account. Equitel has opted to forgo transaction revenue in order to source new accounts and grow its loan book.
FinTech pioneers aren’t oblivious to where this all leads. In fact, more and more are beginning to talk about acquiring banks or banking charters. In a recent episode of ACCION VentureKast, Kopo Kopo CEO Ken Kinyua said:
“There is a point where we’ll be struggling with how to maintain competitive margins for the business, which brings you to a very interesting conversation: What is the cheapest way to get funds? And that is to take public deposits… Do you not then convert and become a bank?”
(Disclosure: I’m a shareholder in Kopo Kopo.)So, my title and opening sentence might have been a little dubious. It’s not that banks will destroy FinTech startups; it’s that FinTech startups are either going to partner with, be subsumed by, or become banks.
Will banks win the FinTech race? Yes, probably.
Once it’s just banks competing with banks, won’t the margins in lending disappear too? Yes, probably. That’s the subject of my next post.
In October 2016, we launched the first DFS Lab Fintech Bootcamp in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — a one-week event where a diverse group of innovators came together from around the world to try and crack some of the toughest fintech challenges in their markets.
After an extensive search that included hundreds of potential candidates, DFS Lab selected a handful of exceptional entrepreneurs to join us in Dar es Salaam. We had a diverse group including former startup founders, the CEO of a mobile money company, heads of mobile for major banks, engineers, UI/UX (user interface and user experience) designers, and even a Tanzanian television star — all with the ambition to create the next successful fintech solution.
We were also lucky to have enthusiastic participation from great mentors such as Nick Hughes (co-founder of M-Kopa and M-PESA), Matt Flannery (CEO of Branch.io and co-founder of Kiva), Peter Zetterli (CGAP) and Dennis Ondeng (CTO of Kopo Kopo), among others.
We quickly decided to structure the week around running several design sprints for each team and each individual entrepreneur who would join us. It is a methodology we used to great success within our own team before and knew it would help us get to know our bootcamp participants quickly.
Our goal was two-fold: (1) to help our participating startups and entrepreneurs successfully prototype and test new concepts, and (2) to work alongside potential DFS Lab portfolio companies as a final stage in our selection process.
What did we learn about running design sprints?
1. Context matters but also limits
We had entrepreneurs from around the world working on startups that not only spanned geography, but also industry, language, culture, and regulatory environment. However, we were all working in the same conference hall in Tanzania.
Our participants came from emerging startup communities where entrepreneurs are excellent at zeroing in on local issues and solutions. This spirit of focusing on the real customer at the end of the day was never forgotten throughout the week but something special happened when we mixed everyone together — the limits that come from a hyper-focus on local constraints started to dissolve.
Over breaks and meals, morning walks and evening drinks, the cross-pollination of ideas was inevitable. A mobile money CEO from Sierra Leone brought incredible perspective to teams looking to attract and partner with mobile money operators in their own regions. Digital credit pioneers from Pakistan pointed out barriers for others looking at the potential of alternative credit scoring. These collaborations flowed all the way down to the sketches that were imagined during each team’s design sprint.
2. Running multiple design sprints in one room stimulates ideas and keeps the energy going
Just like the mixing of ideas during downtime, we tried our best to encourage sharing during the sprint too. We turned the team-only “art museum” to one that was more public — at least being open to the other attending teams. Obviously we were only able to do this because none of the teams saw each other as market competitors.
During points in time where there was work that was being displayed (after sketches are complete, after customer testing notes are put up, etc.) we set aside some time for teams to take a walk around and check out the gallery of ideas stuck to the walls. These breaks sparked conversation and “ah-ha!” moments. When teams reconvened, there was a renewed excitement and an injection of even more ideas. As a side note, these compare and contrast sessions also helped people place a bit more trust in the process, having seen the similar results of others’ creative struggle.
3. Remote testing can be extremely powerful
With customers who were thousands of miles away, many teams looked into remote testing of their prototypes. The DFS Lab team had actually tried this methodology during our own design sprint to prototype a mobile money concept in Tanzania while sitting in our offices in Seattle. We used InVisionto create our app mockups, Lookback to record remote interactions and facial reactions, and hired a local consultant to help us carry out the tests.
Testing with the right customers, even when done remotely allowed our participants to create realistic mockups that they could pick back up after their flights back home. In contrast, the non-Tanzanians who were unable to test remotely back home found that they had to quickly adapt their thinking and prototypes after settling back into their local markets.
Even though the feedback from our participants was really positive, we did make mistakes, and we want to continue to get better at running sprints. We’re figuring out the optimal size for each team we bring, how to more quickly zero in on the right issues to tackle, and better ways to evaluate entrepreneurs while they work with us for the week.
We’re excited to support entrepreneurs around the world to push the boundaries of fintech and we know the design sprint methodology will continue to be an important tool for our teams.
Interested in our next fintech bootcamp?
Much has been made of the fact that a new breed of financial technology (or fintech) companies is unbundling banks in the developed world. Startups are attacking all of the components of the traditional bank value proposition (e.g., accounts, portfolio management, mortgages, car loans, person-to-person payments). Over the past five to six years there has been a rush of capital and talent into startups; investment in them has grown nearly eightfold since 2011. While their innovative products have been a boon to consumers in mature economies, the resulting efficiency and security benefits have largely bypassed the 2 billion consumers in the developing world who lack formal banking services altogether.
However, there are signs that this is changing. Encouraged by the dramatic increase in the number of people with mobile phones in the developing world, new fintech players are attempting to disrupt the existing financial order in these markets: the money lenders and informal remittance services that often have been the only option for much of the population.
Our initiative, the Digital Financial Services Lab, is trying to be a catalyst for this transformation. To that end, it is working with entrepreneurs to introduce innovative solutions to the developing world. A number of the companies mentioned in this article are in DFS Lab’s portfolio.
To succeed in these markets, these startups must overcome three challenges: lack of cloud infrastructure, users who are “less digital” than rich-world users, and users who live economically chaotic lives based primarily in the informal sector.
Lack of Infrastructure and Efficient Cloud ServicesThe fact that many developing countries lack infrastructure that exists in advanced economies presents an opportunity and a challenge. It has prompted some fintech companies to jump in and try to fill the gap by creating “regtech” and “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS).
One of the companies doing this is Trulioo, which is making individual government identity databases around the world accessible through a single streamlined interface online. Another is Flutterwave, which is creating payments and banking interfaces to power fintech offerings in Nigeria.
Users Who Don’t Have a Digital FootprintWhile some people in the developing world have a rich and intricate set of online behaviors, there are many whose only form of access to the digital world is phones with limited data connections or internet cafés, and plenty don’t use digital products at all. Their resulting limited (or nonexistent) digital footprints mean that the sophisticated algorithms that some fintech companies use to generate risk scores or personalized offers in the developed world aren’t useful in these markets.
To succeed in this environment, local players are evolving models that tap into and create new sources of data on users, often by giving users tools that encourage them to expand their digital lives.
One example in India is SERV’D, which is building an app that helps households and the informal workers they employ (e.g., nannies, drivers, cooks, delivery services) create simple formal work contracts and pay them online. The data generated as a byproduct will capture the wages and other payments of the more than 400 million informal workers in India who previously had no way of demonstrating their income for loans and other benefits.
Another possibility comes from the data that Uber and other ride-sharing companies are collecting on their drivers’ incomes. CreditFix is tapping into this kind of data to lend to Pakistani drivers, allowing them to own their auto-rickshaw or taxi and to go into business for themselves rather than work as employees. Sidian Bank in Kenya has a similar program.
Still another example is Cowlar, a Pakistani company that has created a wearable device for cows. It collects data on their temperature, mobility, location, and activities and translates this into real-time intelligence for farmers to help them better manage livestock. Cowlar is now considering how it might translate this “internet of cows” data into financial products, potentially by discounting insurance for well-managed cows or by using data on the amount of milk produced to justify loans.
Consumers Who Lead Chaotic and Cash-Based LivesFew consumers in developing countries have the luxury of regular paychecks. Often they live payout to payout, which might come from selling farm produce one month and from temporary work in picking tea the next.
They also struggle to deal with unpredictable expenses, including medical emergencies, motorcycle breakdowns, and demands from friends who need help. Consequently, their financial lives are orders of magnitude more complex than those of consumers in the developed world. In these situations, standard, rigid insurance premiums or loan-repayment contracts often don’t work, resulting in missed payments and defaults.
But some companies are creating clever offerings to help people through the difficult times. One example from the developed world is Uber’s Xchange, which allows drivers to participate in very-short-term leasing programs (just a few months) and requires little money up front. As the company put it in a blog post, “The key to flexible earnings is flexible financing.” Another example is Malako, an early-stage startup in Uganda that has been experimenting with flexible lines of credit, managed through mobile phones, that low-income consumers can pay off when they have the money and that allow them to make only minimum payments when they don’t — like a credit card.
Fintech companies are proving that they can create workarounds for the infrastructure of developing countries. They can develop flexible products tailored to the lives of the people in those markets. And they can figure out how to generate data streams that shed more light on potential customers’ finances. They can play an important role in bringing the 2 billion consumers into the digital world and improve both their lives and their countries’ economies.
Originally published in the Harvard Business Review on January 20, 2017. See the original article here.
DFS Lab's Jake Kendall and Stephen Deng wrote an article for NextBillion, an industry-leading community of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, NGO managers, policy makers, and academics that explores enterprise's role in development.
They summarized the outcomes of DFS Lab's inaugural bootcamp in Dar es Salaam and the cutting edge fintech trends that emerged during the event. Notably, they found that cheaper is not enough; that the mass market is complex and cannot be effectively served in its entirety; that identity continues to be critical; that one mobile operator is the future of mobile fintech; and that it is paramount to show value ASAP.
The article was the most viewed post in December and was nominated for the "Most Influential Post of 2016." Read the full article on NextBillion.
by Jake Kendall, Dean Karlan, Rebecca Mann, Rohini Pande, Tavneet Suri and Jonathan Zinman
For the 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 per day, shocks such as illness, crop failures, livestock deaths, farming-equipment breakdowns and even wedding or funeral expenses can be enough to tip them, their families, or even an entire community below the poverty line. A major challenge for international development efforts is determining which financial tools provide durable buffers against such setbacks.
While meeting this challenge is a clear priority for policy makers and donors, it is also a major profit opportunity for commercial players who can solve market failures and create real value. Personal savings, insurance, credit, cash transfers from family and friends and other financing mechanisms offer promising opportunities to create security and steady employment but they require a nuanced understanding of product design and the local market conditions in order to be effective.
We recently conducted a literature review of rigorous academic studies of financial service innovations among the very poor to find out what services and products would unlock the most value for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Our findings are captured in a working paper which we summarize below.
Traditional microcredit hasn’t lived up to expectations, but we are learning how to improve it.
The Grameen model of microfinance gained a great deal of attention in the international development field after early data showed that it was associated with high repayment and low default. This model makes small loans, usually to women, without requiring collateral. However, seven randomized evaluations from around the world show that this type of ”one size fits all” microcredit product did not increase the average incomes or consumption of households. Expanded access to microloans did lead some entrepreneurs to increase business investments, but rarely to increased profits. Only one study found that microloans increased women’s decision-making power.
Recent evidence suggests that relatively simple tweaks to microcredit products—including flexible repayment periods, grace periods, individual-liability contracts, or the use of technology—may change their impact on poverty and financial institutions’ bottom line.
Savings accounts are effective safety nets—especially if they apply insights from behavioral sciences.
People don’t need to borrow money during a personal crisis if they have their own savings. One study showed that just eliminating the costs associated with opening a savings account in Kenya significantly increased uptake, overall savings, and investment levels among market vendors. However, while replication studies in Uganda, Malawi, and Chile also found that removing account opening costs increased savings, this was partially offset by a reduction in informal savings and there were no observed impacts on business investment or income. In Nepal, offering female-headed households a no-fee basic account with deposit collection service (i.e., tellers came to their home) led to high uptake and usage and real improvements in welfare. Households responded better to health shocks and spent 20 percent more on education and 15 percent more on meat and fish.
Often, the beneficial impacts of savings accounts can be enhanced by features that help people overcome behavioral biases by, for instance, fortifying willpower. So-called “commitment savings” products have lock-up periods, fees, or other penalties for early withdrawal that “commit” the client to a savings goal. These types of features increased decision-making power for women in the Philippines, with even larger effects for women who started out with below-median decision-making power. In Kenya, a simple “Safe Box” that allowed users to save for preventive or emergency health in a metal box to which they had a key increased achievement of health savings goals by 14 percentage points.
Insurance is highly valuable to protect against shocks but is difficult to scale.
In Ghana, farmers who received rainfall index insurance cultivated more land and spent 13 percent more on fertilizer and labor than those who received just cash, implying that uninsured risk — not lack of access to capital — is a primary constraint on investment by farmers. In India, when farmers were given rainfall index insurance, six percent more farmers focused production towards higher-return, higher-risk cash crops.
However, despite the potential of insurance products to provide a “risk floor” for farmers and encourage higher-productivity investments and behavior, uptake at market prices is extremely low and commercial offerings have not found a profitable delivery model. Micro-insurance is not at scale anywhere except when heavily subsidized by government, a market we hope technology may change in the future.
Digital financial services let people help each other.
Digital payments—for instance, by mobile phone or app—can significantly strengthen people’s financial resilience by enabling an informal risk-sharing network through loans or gifts from friends and relatives. In Kenya, users of mobile-based money-transfer service M-PESA maintained their consumption and spending in the face of economic shocks; non-users of M-PESA had to reduce consumption by 7 percent when facing these shocks. During these hard times, users were more likely to receive domestic remittances—more money from a larger number of people. These improvements in risk-sharing led to higher savings, higher consumption and changes in occupation for user households.
Digital platforms have the potential to change financial services in three ways. First, they may reduce financial institutions’ costs. Second, they can increase the reach of financial products, as traditional brick and mortar channels make it difficult to deliver financial products to people in remote areas. And third, digital platforms can facilitate innovation in product and service design. For example, digital platforms can be configured to improve the customer experience by offering sub-accounts or labeling accounts, and they can provide bank managers with real-time information and other decision aids that can help banks provide better service to clients. Yet there are potential downsides for the bank and the client, since digital products are accessed and disbursed digitally without any face-to-face interaction. Financial institutions must adjust how they analyze client risk, collect payments, optimally cross-sell products without getting to know customers in person. Lack of customer contact could drive up default rates, if not dealt with properly. Ultimately, digital finance may alter client behavior dramatically—for better or worse—with instant access to financial products and information, new user interfaces, and other accompanying changes. Researchers are now studying how digital financial products should be optimally designed to address these potential risks.
We believe that understanding the underlying market failures is the key to designing effective financial products and interventions. Economic theory suggests that we only fully tap the potential of financial markets when information flows freely and symmetrically, when participants choose rationally, when property rights are enforceable, and when transaction costs and barriers to entry are low. In developing economies, market failures and distortions are so strong that all five conditions often fail at once. For instance, lack of information about credit-worthiness—as well as lack of consistent screening ability among lenders—hinders the efficacy of loan programs; traditional bank accounts often are not profitable without high transaction costs that can deter poor borrowers such as long wait times, poor service, high withdrawal fees and high required minimum balances; women often do not have control over their own property; many rural markets are served by monopoly providers, and so on.
Understanding the roots of these market failures—and the evidence on the efficacy of existing financing interventions— will allow the next generation of financial services to better serve the world’s poor. To do so, donors, governments, and private sector players will have to answer some challenging questions: Can we find new technology-based models for digital credit that will succeed where microcredit has failed? Is there a viable way to scale insurance for small farmers? How can we encourage the delivery of well-designed saving products? Can financial products be used to empower women consumers and entrepreneurs?
With the advent of fintech, there is now an active community of scholars, donors, practitioners and technologists working together to find answers to these questions. With continued effort and innovation, we can continue to develop the right financial tools to support the world’s poorest households in resisting shocks and seizing opportunities to climb out of poverty.
Originally published in the Harvard Business Review on October 5, 2016. See the original article here.
What factors predict success for mobile money? New evidence from cross-country multi-variable regression analyses
DFS Lab's Jake Kendall, along with Nika Naghavi and and Shawn Cole, conducted a cross-country study that examined the importance of key business and market characteristics on the growth of active mobile money accounts and mobile money transaction volumes and values.
The rapid, early success of M-PESA in Kenya led some to predict that low-cost, digital financial services would quickly spread throughout the developed and developing world. M-PESA reached one million active mobile money accounts in 2008, just after a year of launching their service, however it took a further three years for a second service to reach the one million active accounts mark. The initially slow rate of growth has increased, starting in about 2012. By the end of 2015, 17 services had surpassed one million active accounts on a 30-day basis. On a 90-day basis, 30 services had passed one million active accounts, and five services had more than five million active accounts.
This growth suggests that the industry may be getting smarter about how to succeed in the business. The GSMA, along with other stakeholders and scholars, have published a number of research papers on determinants of success for mobile financial services, highlighting the role of adequate investment, operational best practices, organisational design, and enabling regulation to drive uptake and usage. However, the industry lacks a comprehensive, cross-country analysis which evaluates the relative importance of firm and market-level factors in a rigorous manner.
To better understand the success factors for mobile money, the GSMA partnered with Shawn Cole, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Jake Kendall, the Director of DFS Lab at Caribou Digital, to examine the relative importance of key business and market characteristics on the growth of active mobile money accounts, as well as on mobile money transaction volumes and values through multi-variable regression analyses.
Today, we are publishing highlights of this research that we believe is the first-ever large-sample quantitative analysis of the expansion of digital financial services. Some of the key findings from the analysis include:
These facts are remarkable and suggest that an enabling regulatory framework can promote the growth of the digital financial services industry, that MNO-led services may be better suited to offer widely adopted digital financial services. Indeed, by allowing additional number of countries adopting an enabling regulatory frameworks, the mobile money industry can further extend the reach of financial inclusion, with services achieving greater scale and improving the lives of low-income population.
We hope this quantitative assessment complements existing research on market- and firm-level characteristics behind the success of mobile money services.
This is the first comprehensive cross-country analysis that evaluates the importance of firm- and market-level factors in a rigorous manner, and was originally summarized in a blog post for GSMA in November 2016. See the full post or download the publication.
Lara Gilman is a fintech entrepreneur specializing in mobile money solutions. She was a participant in DFS Lab's inaugural bootcamp in 2016 and a winner of one of five competitive DFS Lab grants to further iterate her company Yooz. See more of Lara's writing on Linkedin.
Demonetization in India has been anything but straightforward and the jury is still out on whether the controversial move will prove worthwhile. The global chatter has been mixed, ranging from bold to foolhardy. Bold because demonetization could trigger a much-needed step-change in the long-term exposure to black money (which some have argued could only have been influenced by something dramatic); foolhardy because the risk/reward coefficient seems lopsided. India risks as much as a full percentage point in GDP and most of the black money seems to have found itself back in the system anyway.
The experience on the ground is no less complicated. On the one hand, queues around the block have made the cash experience almost impossible, particularly for those who would feel it most. On the other hand, the painful cash experience is driving the adoption of digital, something that any fintech or financial inclusion enthusiast could find cause to celebrate. Whether or not you support the decision to demonetise, it’s clear this move has given fintech start-ups an unprecedented advantage against cash.
It’s the Modi lift. Wallets, payroll companies, acquirers, gateways and payment bank providers will have all had a pretty epic month as Indians look to digital solutions in the absence of the 500 and 1000 rupee notes. PayTM, an obvious front runner, reported signing up 20 million new customers since Modi’s announcement. Removing a significant amount of grease from the cash economy, the government has created a unique opportunity for fintechs to on-board merchants and customers to services which can not only solve their cash pains, but also address their broader financial needs. The question is, will customers stay engaged once the cash pains aren’t quite so acute?
From the standpoint of the digitisation of cash, the Modi lift will be temporary. Particularly as new 500 rupee notes increase in circulation, Indians will have the option to go back to cash. While fintech providers have this window of opportunity, it will not be a panacea for long-term digital adoption. In fact, with increased attention on digitisation, any security hack or financial loss in the fintech space could have an amplified impact on Indian consumers’ journey toward digital adoption. The biggest challenge of rapid growth is not getting caught off-guard by rapid growth.
For customers to thrive beyond cash, providers must remain focused on creating and reinforcing consistently positive customer experiences. The digital players who could move the needle will be those who remain invested in offering a relevant, reliable, transparent and accessible service. What is clear is that India is poised to make a potentially radical and permanent shift to digital. Whether India can make this shift is, largely, in the hands of the ecosystem players building it.
About DFS Lab
We work work with entrepreneurs to create FinTech innovations that bring people in the developing world from the cash economy into the digital realm.
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Google has announced that its social section, Wildfire, won’t be building new features or signing up new customers, effectively winding down the service. So what will this mean for social media marketers?
In 2012, Google bought Wildfire for a reported $250m with the aim to create “new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services.”
Wildfire, which allows users to manage their pages, apps, tweets, videos, sponsorships and social ads in one place, has had clients such as Virgin, Cirque du Soleil and Spotify. However, the platform is now rolling its technology into the DoubleClick ad platform.
This means confusion for customers, with Google rumoured to be helping companies migrate to new platforms.
“Right now there will be a lot of uncertainty for Wildfire customers, enterprise level customers of social media solutions require a hands on approach from their vendors in order to navigate the complex ever changing and complex landscape in social media,” explained Ian Robin, director of strategic accounts at HootSuite.
“With Wildfire limiting their development and no longer able to sign up new customers their ability to satisfy clients in this fast paced and analytics driven industry are limited.”
Customers can continue to use the existing Wildfire tools, but they are expected to move to other social management services: such as HootSuite, SocialBro or SproutSocial.
According to AdWeek, one such service, Sprinklr, has seen more than said more than 20 Wildfire customers reaching out in need of new social media management.
HootSuite has also seen this as an opportunity to increase its market: “With our global footprint and over eight million customers we can help Wildfire customers transition easily,” Robin boasts, promoting how it works with over 700 of the Fortune 1000 and over 1,200 enterprise customers of all sizes.
HootSuite told The Drum it has seen 20 times the normal amount of web inquiries on a global scale, with an overall increase of 2000 per cent on Friday, when the Wildfire announcement was made.
The Wildfire technology will be integrated into DoubleClick to “enable marketers to use social insights to improve their marketing campaigns.”


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Don't believe anything you read or see on the Web—at least not at first glance. No, this is not about Anthony Weiner's initial claim last week that his Twitter account was hacked.
A report circulating on the Web today about a woman who had the faces of her 152 Facebook friends tattooed on her body has been followed by other reports claiming that the story—and the viral YouTube video of the inking process—is a hoax. PCWorld, MSNBC.com, TechCrunch and other online outlets reported today that YouTube user Suzyj87 had her friends' faces tattooed on her arm; later in the day came reports that it was a stunt engineered by Dutch design and marketing company Pretty Social. The tattoos were temporary. So they say. Is that too a lie?
Knee-jerk reaction on the Web is no laughing matter. All brands and organizations are fair game for pranksters, who can easily send a PR team into crisis mode by posting a fake video on YouTube. There is a dark side to constant monitoring of mentions of a brand—too quick a response can play right into a prankster's hands and wreck one's credibility at worst and make one look foolish at best.
All communicators—mainstream media, bloggers, PR pros—will have to learn to step back and do smart research and perhaps even pick up a phone before responding to any story pitch or seemingly dire report, factoid or video.


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Longtime Gunmaker latest in several industry companies to sever ties with Dick’s Sporting Goods over ties to anit-gun lobbyists
O.F. Mossberg & Sons became the latest in a barrage of companies recently to sever all ties with Dick’s Sporting Goods after the retailer reportedly hired gun control lobbyists in April. The action comes on the heels of the same company’s decision to terminate the sale of AR-15-style rifles and raise the minimum purchase age to 21 for all firearms.
The announcement details that Mossberg, effective immediately, will no longer accept orders from Dick’s or Field & Stream, a Dick’s Sporting Goods subsidiary.
“It has come to our attention that Dick’s Sporting Goods recently hired lobbyists on Capitol Hill to promote additional gun control,” said Iver Mossberg, Chief Executive Officer, O.F. Mossberg & Sons. “Make no mistake, Mossberg is a staunch supporter of the U.S. Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and we fully disagree with Dick’s Sporting Goods’ recent anti-Second Amendment actions.”
Less than a week ago, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industries, voted to expel Dick’s Sporting Goods from its membership for “conduct detrimental to the best interests to the Foundation.”
We believe that hiring lobbyists to oppose American citizens’ freedoms secured by the Second Amendment is wrong. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field & Stream, in purportedly doing all of these things, have demonstrated that they do not share our values.Charles Brown
In a similar move, MKS Supply, marketer of Hi-Point and Inland Manufacturing, announced recently it too would cease to sell any firearms to Dick’s or Field & Stream, as did Springfield Armory, as a clear trend is taking shape in the firearm industry toward companies that actively support gun control measures.
“We believe that villainizing modern sporting rifles in response to pressure from uninformed, anti-gun voices is wrong,” said MKS Supply’s Charles Brown in a statement. “We believe that hiring lobbyists to oppose American citizens’ freedoms secured by the Second Amendment is wrong. Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field & Stream, in purportedly doing all of these things, have demonstrated that they do not share our values.”
In related news, Forbes recently reported that Dick’s experienced unexpected sales declines following the announcement of its self-imposed gun control measures. Coincidence, we think not.
The lesson here, don’t be a Dick’s.


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A report from Bloomberg today mentioned a new form of “game” in development at Nintendo. Wii-based diet software. The Bloomberg report, issued following recent strong performance of Nintendo’s Japanese stock, made mention of the new software in passing. Nintendo is developing diet-related and other forms of software for the Wii.
The report noted that such titles, specifically Brain Age for the DS, have been able to target new users who aren’t used to standard game controllers. IGN mentions Nintendo is expected to reveal more on the Wii in September, or possibly before that at the Games Convention on August 23. Xbox has Yourself Fitness, PS2 has EyeToy Kinetic, so Wii Exercise makes sense if you look at Nintendo’s popular non-games.


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Alltrue.com, a Web site that offers free content featuring footage of pranks and outrageous behavior, has created a new revenue stream by packaging its best clips and selling them as a three-video set through a late-night infomercial.
A full-service production company, Alltrue was seeking new ways to derive money from its Web site, which receives 1.3 million visitors per month. Banner ads on the Web site were not bringing in enough revenue, said Matt Heindl, marketing director at Alltrue, New York.
“You can nickel-and-dime it forever,” Heindl said. “It's not going to add up.”
A two-week test of the long-form infomercial, which ran last month on BET, Comedy Central, E Entertainment and some broadcast stations, netted 6,000 sales of the $19.95 set. A $9.95 upsell of two additional tapes, offered when viewers responded to the toll-free number in the infomercial, also did well, selling thousands, said Judy Katz, vice president of business development at Alltrue.
A full rollout of the infomercial is imminent, Katz said, although she did not discuss further details. The infomercial was produced in conjunction with Cole Media Group, Lockport, NY, Alltrue's business partner.
The campaign targeted men age 18 to 35, although Alltrue thinks its products appeal to older men as well, Katz said. The infomercial, which ran on weekend afternoons and late weeknights, was composed entirely of samples from the videos.
“We think people will watch this, laugh and want to buy it,” Katz said.
The three-video set features two “Xtreme Laughs” videos, which include a series of real-life pranks played on unsuspecting passersby. Alltrue.com serves as a compendium of video clips of such pranks, including those sent in by viewers and those produced by Alltrue.
The third tape features the “FreakBox,” a booth equipped with a $100,000 mini-video studio. Alltrue takes the booth to public occasions — such as Spring Break events — and lets people who go in the box do whatever they wish on tape.
The upsell product includes an additional Xtreme Laughs video and an additional FreakBox video.
Alltrue is preparing to apply the concept of monetizing its Web site through television in other ways. The company said it is in negotiations with TV broadcasters in the United States and Europe to pilot television shows based on the themes introduced in Alltrue.com.


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The state capture inquiry is expected to hear more Eskom-related testimony on Wednesday.
Former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe is expected to continue his testimony before the Zondo Commission
The commission is also expected to hear from former Eskom CFO Anoj Singh.
In other news – Idols SA Winner Zama Khumalo shows off her new Ride
Idols SA season 16 winner, Zama Khumalo who walked away with R1 million, a recording deal from Kalawa Jazmee, R150,000 worth of the latest Samsung products, a new Toyota Starlet 1.4, R100,000 worth of fashion from Truworths.
AKymco Xciting 400 scooter worth R120,000 and R80,000 worth of musical instruments from Yamaha, has finally gotten her wheels. Learn more


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Identity Crisis: Mitsubishi Seeks to Redefine Itself
Mitsubishi has an identity crisis, and is hoping a new advertising agency can help it create a more focused plan in the U.S. market.
Earlier this week, we brought you the news that Mitsubishi is ambitiously targeting sales of 100,000 units in a few years, almost double from the 53,986 sold in 2009. A mixture of new products and better advertising should help the automaker at least come close to that goal.
Actually, any advertising at all would be a good start toward six-figure U.S. sales. Mitsubishi spent $18 million on non-online advertising for the first 11 months of 2009. Compare that to $82 million in 2008 and $177 million in 2007 according to Nielsen, and it's clear more exposure should be successful in reminding people Mitsubishi makes more than just TVs in the U.S.
Not everyone believes Mitsubishi is capable of redefining itself and meeting its long-term goals: "Sorry, if you haven't established that in 30 years, you never will," said Car Concepts' Todd Turner to Ad Week.
The search for a new ad agency is expected to end in March. That new agency will also be responsible for improving Mitsubishi's Web site (mitsubishicars.com), which currently offers no easy way to access each vehicle on the homepage. If Mitsubishi wants inspiration, the company might want to look at highly rated sites from Honda, Kia, and Acura.
So now we turn to you. Do you think Mitsubishi already has a well-established brand identity and, if not, how can the company find its niche in the market?
Source: Ad Week
2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR is shown.


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In the last few months, Hearst has brought on new talent responsible for data: Adam Harris, Hearst’s VP of data products for Hearst Magazines Digital Media, joined the company in May 2017. In this role, Harris is responsible for building and implementing data products across Hearst Magazines Digital Media, that are premium and perform for the goals of Hearst’s clients. He also develops methods to offer metrics to advertisers that prove branded content moves readers from brand awareness into consideration in the funnel. “More specifically,” he explained, “my focus since joining the organisation has been developing an offering that allows Hearst Magazines to leverage its understanding of its digital content and growing knowledge of users to offer better targeting of media for its advertising partners.”
Marketers and advertisers are asking for publishers to have and deliver premium, beautiful products that perform well. The more publishers know about their audiences, the more value they can bring to advertisers, he said.
In response, Hearst puts data to use. Hearst Magazines Digital Media’s portfolio of brands’ audience and the data they have, is significant, with unique profiles on more than 140 million digital consumers who engage with HMDM brands. The publisher uses and collects data to gain more insight about its readers to inform content strategy, product decision and placements across their portfolio. Harris and his team help connect content with the audience targets and products.
Harris believes publishers can create unique value for advertisers at the intersection of content, people, and client products. “We use reader insights to target the most relevant advertising to consumers and connect them to the products and solutions that they’re looking for,” he explained. “For example, if an article is about spring trench coats, and we know from our data gathering that the reader shops fast fashion brands, we will surface products that will most likely drive them to take the next action.”
Hearst’s content to commerce strategy “is designed to move consumers further down the purchasing funnel and we are doing a number of things to both improve the commercial impact of content and track the results,” Harris explained.
“Across our brands, we’ve integrated the ability to add SKU level product, pricing and availability data into content through our proprietary platform, MedisOS. In addition, we’ve learned how to make content that creates transactions through years of honing our affiliate commerce efforts and have developed a brilliant branded content studio that combines aspiration and action.”
Harris explained that they influence hundreds of millions of dollars of purchases across Hearst brands every month and, increasingly, their ability to do this is becoming trackable. “With our content to commerce strategy, we see consumers engaging on a deeper level – which ultimately results in sales. We’re seeing success in retail and apparel, driving both online sales and in store conversions,” he said.
Condé Nast has also been investing in data, with the acquisition of Lighthouse Datalab in the last couple of weeks, building on its data science capabilities. Lighthouse Datalab was a data solutions firm that focused on extracting actionable insights from client data to provide value for its clients. Its founder, Sriram Subramanian, was named head of data science at Condé Nast, and will be leading the company’s data science efforts.
Acquiring the firm and appointing Subramanian to lead Condé Nast’s data team enhances the team, and helps the company leverage its data to provide better solutions for partners, consumers and content creators, said Karthic Bala, head of data strategy for Condé Nast. “The new additions will enable us to accelerate our plan of becoming a data first organisation,” Bala said. “We have always led in our influence. Using data science will enable us to use this influence to drive consumer engagement and marketing performance.”
Marketers and advertisers are asking for data-driven intelligent marketing, he explained. “Basically that means: use data to find the right customer and provide us actionable intelligence to optimize our campaigns. Our Spire platform enables us to do just that and prove ROI.”
Last month, Condé Nast announced it had expanded its data capabilities with the evolution of Spire, a precision audience targeting platform, aimed at connecting advertisers to audiences at crucial moments. “Spire gives us the ability to follow consumers through every stage of the purchase journey, and we can directly connect advertisers with the consumers they’re most interested in, at the earliest point of their purchasing decisions–when they’re discovering what they want to buy through our content,” said Pamela Drucker Mann, Condé Nast’s chief revenue and marketing officer, in a release.
It’s all part of a data collection and collation strategy that collect information on consumers interacting with Condé Nast brands and what their preferences are, Bala explained. “We also partner with leading data organisations to further enhance our understanding of the consumer, thereby enabling us to drive higher performance. Using predictive modeling we can also personalise the user experience to provide the right content, to the right user at the right time.”
In 2018, a data strategy is vital to publishers, as it enables analysis, insights, predictive and prescriptive models to create better user experience and engagement and at the same time deliver better products and value for clients, Bala explained.
For publishers looking to increase their investment in data collection, data science and data collection strategies, look to leaders in the field like Hearst and Condé Nast.
Having a data science team to support a publisher’s brands will help publishers translate their knowledge of their audience and consumers into actionable insights, Condé Nast’s Bala said.
“This enables them to deliver better engagement with the content as well as more relevant advertising,” Bala said. “Data science also enables publishers to optimise delivery of messages to increase performance. In general, a data science group enables you to do everything better and helps to deliver the maximum value to your customers and consumers.”
Having a data collection strategy is increasingly important for publishers today, Harris said. But it’s not one size fits all. “At Hearst, we have a large enough footprint, with sites that are covering a wide range of topics, to leverage our audiences directly; we’re able to mine data to create insights that are differentiated from other data sources; and we have a high appetite for absorbing all the data we’re collecting and creating new tools and best-practices to build on our audiences from disparate sources,” he said. “If you don’t have these three key criteria, it might be better to look toward third parties or your advertisers to bring their own data assets to any given campaign.”


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Nicole Richie to release 'classy' fragrance
Nicole Richie is set to launch her first fragrance, which will be "cool and classy".
The reality TV star already has a jewellery line and successful clothing and accessories collection.
Nicole now has her sights on the lucrative perfume industry, and will create her own fragrance with company TPR.
The 30-year-old star has signed a deal to launch her signature scent next September in department and specialty stores.
Brian Robinson, president of TPR, is thrilled to be working alongside the hard-working mother-of-two. He says that fans can expect a "cool, classy scent with an edge."
"[Nicole] has a wide breadth of creative talents being an author, a jewellery designer, a fashion designer and an aspirational figure," he told WWD.
"She also has three million Twitter followers but more importantly she has trade credibility. She's done a great job with her image."
Nicole first discussed a perfume partnership a year ago, but the timing wasn't right, Brian explained.
In October 2008, Nicole debuted her jewellery line, House of Harlow 1960. In 2010 the line was extended to include apparel and shoes.
In 2009, Richie joined maternity store A Pea in the Pod to create a new collection of maternity clothes. In February 2010, Nicole expanded her fashion business with a women's line called Winter Kate, her daughter's two middle names.
© Cover Media


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Delta Motorsport introduces Micro Turbine Range Extender
Green Car Congress
SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
At the LCV 2016 event in the UK last week, Delta Motorsport unveiled a new low-cost micro-turbine applied as a range-extended in an electric car. The company developed the E-4 Coupe extended-range electric electric vehicle in a £3.1-million (US$4-million) collaborative R&D project.


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Vizio: To Succeed, Streaming Video Needs to Work With TV
While online video has been making impressive strides, traditional television is by far the dominant way that most homes get their entertainment. As Aaron Dew, a product manager for Vizio, explained at the recent Streaming Media West conference in Los Angeles, understanding viewer behavior is key for device-makers.
"We look at consumer behavior, and we look at how consumers consume entertainment in the home," Dew said. "If you look across generations, across different age groups, still the overwhelming majority of content that gets consumed in the home by consumers is traditional TV. There's a huge behavioral pattern that consumers have. There may be other content that is getting consumed concurrently with live TV -- people are looking at their laptops, they're looking at their tablets -- but still overwhelmingly the TV is a real critical part, a real key part of how consumers consume media."
As the adage goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Vizio knows that to gain viewers, it has to work with traditional TV.
"As we're looking at Vizio's strategy, as we're looking at how we entice consumers to switch some of that behavior from focusing on traditional TV content delivery, from live TV or DVR, we're looking at how we can interface with that traditional behavior that they have," Dew said. "So, if consumers are watching live TV in our smart TVs, in our streaming players, we really want to overlay and interface with that content."
For more on Vizio's strategy, and Livestream's strategy, watch the presentation below.
DEVICE DEMOS: Vizio and Livestream
This session features new product demos from Vizio, showcasing its new $99 Co-Star streaming box, and Livestream, which demos its new $495 Livestream Broadcaster. See both of these devices in action and get your questions answered by company executives.
Speaker: Aaron Dew, Product Manager, Vizio
Speaker: Jeff Varnell, EVP, Business Development, Livestream
The TV maker collected a range of viewing and demographic data from 11 million households for 3 years without authorization, and is paying modest fines.
Buyers can soon pre-order a low-priced Google TV device that works with cable or satellite boxes.
Will sell for $99, beats Roku and Apple TV in features, includes Google TV


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Sports Illustrated Creative Director Chris Hercik Given Expanded Portfolio of ResponsibilitiesPosted: September 27, 2012
Sports Illustrated Creative Director Christopher Hercik will take on creative oversight for all Sports Illustrated web and digital products, it was announced by Time Inc. Sports Group Editorial Director Paul Fichtenbaum. Hercik, who had overseen the creative direction for all SI print and tablet products will expand his portfolio to include all consumer products and brand platforms. This appointment continues a stellar year for Hercik who, in June, received Time Inc.’s Most Valuable Performer, given to the single individual who has made significant contribution to the company over the course of a year.
“Chris is the ideal modern-day Creative Director—he’s comfortable and intuitive working across all platforms, who brings a gifted and innovative approach to design,” said Fichtenbaum
Hercik has been with Sports Illustrated for more than a decade, initially focusing on the print products. In recent years, he has become critical in SI’s ability to publish weekly digital editions across seven platforms (iPad, iPhone, Kind Fire, Android Tablets, Android Smartphones, Web). His team annually designs more than 30,000 pages. Hercik also oversees the creative direction for the Swimsuit franchise and all of its extensions in mobile, digital, TV and consumer products.


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Operations at DHL Express’s €131 million upgraded gateway at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport have begun.
The Incheon Gateway is the biggest DHL Express investment in the country and makes the facility the largest gateway in Asia Pacific. It has more than tripled in size, handling 3.5 times more cargo and features digitised and automated systems that are reducing delivery time of imported goods by 30 minutes.
The expansion aims to address the increasing air cargo demand at the Gateway, a result of growing overseas trade in South Korea and an increase in international express import and export with Asia-Pacific countries, including Singapore, Japan, China, Australia and Taiwan.
“Between 2011 and now, the transit cargo handling volume we handled in the country grew more than threefold,” said DHL Executive Vice President of Network Operations and Aviation, Asia Pacific, Sean Wall.
“The opening of the expanded Incheon Gateway arrives at a right time, as it plays an important role to facilitate regional and intra-Asia trade, particularly for the Northeast Asian region, including Dalian, Qingdao, Wuxi, Ulaanbaatar, and Guam.”
The enhanced Incheon Gateway now boasts a gross floor area of 59,248 square metres and a handling capacity of 28,400 pieces per hour. It includes a 5.5 km-long conveyor belt and 19 automated X-ray inspection machines, helping connect global DHL hubs through seven dedicated DHL aircraft and 40 aircraft from partner airlines.
To minimise greenhouse gas emissions, the facility is partly powered by solar energy. A 1-megawatt solar power generator, the first of its kind at Incheon International Airport, has been installed, producing energy that covers roughly 30 per cent of the facility’s consumed energy,
“Since its initial opening in 2009, the handling volume of import and export at Incheon Gateway has increased by more than 90 per cent in 2022,” said Country Manager of DHL Express Korea, ByungKoo Han.
“With this expansion, we are confident that we can adeptly manage the surge in shipment volume and cater to the increasing demand for international express delivery over the coming decade.”


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Lotte Group will invest 50 trillion won in new investment and create 70,000 jobs over the next five years. "We decided to invest 50 trillion won in all domestic and foreign businesses for the coming five years," a Lotte Group spokesman said on Oct. 23.
"We will actively make investment and promote the value of our corporate value although the environment is difficult," said Chairman Shin Dong-bin of Lotte Group.
First of all, it is planning to invest about 12 trillion won next year. This figure exceeds 11.2 trillion won, the biggest amount in 2016. The distribution sector will focus on enhancing online capabilities, while the chemical sector will seek to expand facilities such as ethylene in Korea, Indonesia and the United States.
It is planning to seek new opportunities for growth through digital transformation. It is going to expand its business based on Indonesia and Vietnam while continuing to push for expansion into new markets.
First of all, the distribution sector plans to focus on increasing the capacity of the online business to the highest level in the industry. It will actively utilize digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data to provide new experiences to customers.
In particular, it is planning to increase customer convenience by making large investments in distribution infrastructures that span on and off-line such as logistics facilities and systems.
Meanwhile, Lotte decided to hire 70,000 people over the next five years. As conditions at home and abroad worsen this year, 12,000 employees are expected to be hired by the end of the year.
Lotte plans to hire more than 13,000 employees in 2019, up about 10 percent from this year, as it has strong will to normalize management and create jobs.
In October 2016, when Shin announced the reform plan for Lotte Group, he announced a plan to hire 70,000 new employees and invest a total of 40 trillion won over five years from 2017.


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On October 31, ZTE held a press conference in Beijing, and they officially launch of the new brand new Chinese name Nubia smartphone.
ZTE released a new brand for the first time in the Group’s brand outside, according to the conference on the introduction of first Nubia brand within the smartphone codenamed Z5 Recently, China Mobile is also the exclusive get this Nubia Z5 real machine spy photographs, and some more information on this phone also expose.
According to the picture, Nubia Z5 smartphone is more thinner than Apple iPhone 5, on the picture above the Nubia smartphone (right) is more thinner, because has 7.6mm thickness than Apple iPhone 5 (left).
And the Nubia Z5 uses unibody design, and look like HTC One X back-cover, on rear facing body, Nubia smartphone has double speaker phone and camera with flash light. According to rumor, the Nubia Z5 smartphone has 13 megapixel rear-facing camera, unfortunately there is no information about the camera suplier for now.
Combine the information before the conference, Nubia Z5 is expected to be available in December of this year, it will be 5 inches screen size with 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution HD big screen and equipped with the latest quad-core processor, but the specific model of the hardware is also not conceivable. At present, the information about Nubia Z5 also limited, and we will continue to focus the News this phone, so stay tuned.